


Goodnight, Travel Well

by oldamongdreams



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Friendship, M/M, Moving On, Post Reichenbach, Songfic, he doesn't break easily, john is a soldier first and foremost, not the happiest of endings, references to 'The Killers' songs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 18:37:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldamongdreams/pseuds/oldamongdreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is a soldier, first and foremost, and Sherlock is not the first friend he’s seen die. If it was worse than the others, if it hurt more…well, he puts that down to the unexpectedness of it. Death is a part of war, but even knowing that London is a battleground could not prepare him for the sight of his best friend falling to his death in front of his eyes.<br/>But it’s over and done with now, and as much as it pains him, there is nothing more he can do. He left his last words and his longing thoughts at the graveyard, and if regrets sometimes haunt his dreams, well, no one else needs to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodnight, Travel Well

 

_The unknown distance to the great beyond_

_Stares back at my grieving frame_

_To cast my shadow by the holy sun_

_My spirit moans with a sacred pain_

John doesn’t go to the funeral. He knows that he is expected to go, he had even intended to go up until the moment he stood to leave. Suddenly, it was all too much, knowing what would be expected of him. He was meant to stand by the gravesite and extol Sherlock’s virtues, to speak of him in the past tense. To talk about what that man—that insane, brilliant, man—had meant to him. That was what they wanted him to say, but all he could think was _don’t. Don’t do this to me, Sherlock, not this time. Don’t be dead. For me._

He spends the day staring at the open door to Sherlock’s bedroom, afraid to go inside but unable to look away. He ignores Mycroft’s calls just as carefully as he ignores the few tears than managed to slip past his impassive façade.

When he finally makes it to the graveyard, everyone but Mrs. Hudson is gone. He places his hand on the grave, willing Sherlock to hear him, wherever he is, and lets the words that have been bouncing around in his head all day slip out.

_And it's quiet now_

_The universe is standing still_

When he arrives back at Baker Street, it is dark and it is quiet. Sherlock’s last experiment is still on the table where he left it. John sits on the couch with his head in his hands for a long time before going up to bed, closing Sherlock’s door softly as he passes it.

_There's nothing I can say_

_There's nothing we can do now_

_There's nothing I can say_

_There's nothing we can do now_

John moves out after a week. That’s how long it takes him to find a flat that he can afford on his own—he doesn’t think he can handle another flatmate right now—and sign the lease. There’s nothing else he can do, no other option that won’t shatter him into pieces. He doesn’t want to shatter. John is a soldier, first and foremost, and Sherlock is not the first friend he’s seen die. If it was worse than the others, if it hurt more…well, he puts that down to the unexpectedness of it. Death is a part of war, but even knowing that London is a battleground could not prepare him for the sight of his best friend falling to his death in front of his eyes.

But it’s over and done with now, and as much as it pains him, there is nothing more he can do. He left his last words and his longing thoughts at the graveyard, and if regrets sometimes haunt his dreams, well, no one else needs to know.

_And all that stands between the souls release?_

_This temporary flesh and bone_

_We know that it's over now_

_I feel my faded mind begin to roam_

John starts back at the surgery two months to the day after Sherlock’s fall. The press has died down, has found another scandal to pull to pieces, and the only looks of recognition he receives are laced with pity.

He goes on several dates in the months that follow, but none of them last. If the women suspect they are being held up to standards set by a dead man, they don’t mention it. If John thinks that he is trying to fill a hole in his heart left by someone else, he doesn’t ever say a word. It is eight months to the day when John catches himself laughing at something a woman at the surgery said, his mouth pulled into a smile that isn’t even slightly faked. For the next twenty minutes, he doesn’t even think the name Sherlock Holmes.

Later, he justifies it to himself in the dark of his flat, where no one can hear him and the sound of a violin will never wake him in the night. It’s not cheating if the other party is dead, if they were never a couple in the first place. He has room in his heart for people who are not Sherlock. The thought keeps him up all night.

_Every time you fall_

_And every time you try_

He doesn’t visit the gravesite on the anniversary. It feels too raw, a wound that will open again if he so much as picks at it. When he does visit, it is sporadic. A spur of the moment decision instigated by the smell of cigarette smoke on the street, the sound of police sirens, a new display on astronomy at the museum.

He always stays for far longer than he means to, leaning back against the headstone with his eyes closed. Sometimes he talks, tells Sherlock about the fiasco of a date he went on the night before, the blond man with eyes so similar to Sherlock’s that he felt his heart skip a beat, the latest goings-ons at the yard that Greg related to him on the few occasions that they manage to meet for a drink. Other times he sits in silence, letting himself bask in the facsimile of proximity that lasts until he opens his eyes. He misses Sherlock (and Baker Street, and the danger, and crime scenes, but Sherlock most of all) more than he can let himself admit anytime other than these quiet, stolen moments.

_Every foolish dream_

_And every compromise_

Her name is Mary. John tells himself that he could love her. She makes him laugh, and smile, and she doesn’t mind the limp. She’s beautiful, in her own way, and John spends many sleepless nights telling himself there would be no harm in falling for her.

Half the problem is, he knows he’s right. Mary is not dangerous, not in any sense of the word. A part of him—a small part, easily shoved to the back of his mind—wishes she was.

_Every word you spoke_

_And everything you said_

_Everything you left me, rambles in my head_

It’s not that he misses Sherlock less, as time goes on. It’s more that he finds himself with more to do than miss Sherlock. For the first time in a long time, John’s life does not revolve around a mad genius with a taste for danger. He is more than a blogger, a sidekick, a friend. He never stops missing Sherlock, he just begins to pick up the pieces and move on.

But every time he catches sight of someone in a long black coat, a blue scarf, a mop of curly black hair, he returns to the graveyard.

He never apologizes for living. Sherlock, for all that he was a selfish bastard, wouldn’t have wanted John to die with him that day. John is unsure about many things, but that is not one of them.

_Up above the world so high_

He proposes in a restaurant untainted with old ghosts. It is two years to the day since Sherlock fell. If John intended to cover that memory with a newer, happier one, he never admits it.

_And everything you loved_

_And every time you try_

_Everybody's watching_

_Everybody cry_

They are to be married in the summer (three years, one month, two days, not that’s he’s counting). John’s visits to the graveyard decrease from once a week to once a month to whenever he remembers, between work and moving in with Mary and the plans for the wedding.

John hasn’t cried over Sherlock since the first few months after his death, but when he reaches the graveyard on a Sunday afternoon, the ground still soggy from the rain (two years, eleven months, five days), he does what he probably should have done years before.

John doesn’t sit this time; he stands and faces the grave, eyes open wide. “I threw away the skull,” he says in a soft voice. “I didn’t want Mary asking questions, and it was about time I let it go.” John imagines that Sherlock knows he is talking about more than the skull. “Goodbye, Sherlock,” he says finally, with an air of finality. Some things are just better left unsaid.

_Stay, don't leave me_

_The stars can wait for your sign_

_Don't signal now_

Three years, to the day. Mary asked him out to dinner, but he refused. There was work to be done, old memories to be avoided, a memoir to write. He has been working on it for months now, all the things he could not say, all the things that needed to be said. _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes._

A knock at the door, a teakettle boiling over, the shattering of a cup as he glimpses the upturned collar of a black coat through the window. These are things that John will never remember when he looks back.

And then the door is flung open and John’s hands are everywhere, on Sherlock’s coat and his face and his hair, doing everything he can to convince himself that the mirage in front of him is real. Sherlock’s lips are moving, saying the same world over and over, and it takes John a moment to realize that the broken sound is his name, repeated over and over like a prayer. His blood runs hot, and then very, very cold, and he takes a step back from Sherlock.

“You’re alive,” John says flatly.

Sherlock nods.

“You’re a bastard,” John says quietly before punching him as hard as he can.

He doesn’t regret it, not when he pulls Sherlock into his arms, a litany of “don’t do that ever again why did you leave how did you do it I missed you” spilling from his lips.

Not when Sherlock draws in a quick breath as John’s fingers brush his ribs and John feels the tackiness of drying blood through the fabric of his shirt.

Not when he bandages Sherlock up and insists that he eats, and it’s just like old times again.

_And there's nothing I can say_

_There's nothing I can do now_

_There's nothing I can say_

_There's nothing we can do now_

It’s isn’t until he picks up his phone and finds three missed messages from Mary, when he walks to the cupboard and it takes him a moment to remember why he won’t find Sherlock’s favorite mug, when the tea he pours is the brand Mary buys rather than the kind John prefers, that he realizes how well and truly fucked he is.

“I’m getting married in a month,” he says numbly.

Sherlock’s eyes flicker once before something seems to die in them.

“Will you—I know it’s short notice, but I couldn’t think of anyone to do it before, and eventually I would have just asked one of Mary’s friends to save face—but, um, would you be my best man?” It’s a poor attempt to make things right, to reconcile the two worlds he finds himself straddling, but John doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t give up Mary, and he certainly can’t give up Sherlock.

“Certainly,” Sherlock says, a smile on his face. If John hadn’t seen his real smile so many times, even if it has only appeared in half-forgotten dreams over the last few years, he might not have known he was faking.

“Where are you staying?” John asked, desperate for a change of topic.

The ghost of a smile flickered over Sherlock’s face. “The address is 221b Baker Street. I ought to be heading back now; I don’t suppose I could convince you to accompany me?” Sherlock’s voice is low, and something flares to life under John’s skin before he buries it again.

Three years ago, a year ago even, John would have said yes in a heartbeat. But that was then, and now he can’t help but hesitate. “Mary—” he begins, but he stops when he sees a flicker of what looks like anguish behind Sherlock’s eyes.

“I’ll come visit,” he says as Sherlock pulls his coat back on and walks to the door.

“Of course,” Sherlock says in a clipped tone.

They’re both lying, saying what needs to be said in order to pretend nothing has changed.

John sits on the couch with his head in his hands for a long time, trying to pretend that Sherlock Holmes has not just shattered his world into pieces for a second time.

When he stands to bed, his hands do not tremble.

The rest of his body is another matter altogether.

_Goodnight, travel well._

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the lovely lemonadesummers11. All mistakes are my own. Song lyrics come from "Goodnight, Travel Well" by The Killers. There will possibly be a second chapter for those who like things wrapped up neatly.  
> Concrit and comments are always appreciated!


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